My last two blog entries, I focused on how much of a fuck up I've been over the past years. In short, the two main things were that I was lazy and not confident in myself or my ability. I've been told by a few people that I was too hard on myself, but it needs to be done. Not to just me, BUT TO YOU AS WELL! You need to be honest with yourself and realize most of your problems are brought on by yourself! By owning up to how you could have changed the outcome of a certain situation, you start feeling empowered. If you can make the mess, you can find a way to undo the mess. At most, you can control your response to things that you feel are out of your control. Who likes walking around feeling miserable and helpless? Unless you're some type of damaged person, I know you sure the hell don't.

Just because I did mess up in my life over the years, I'm still in a great position in life where I can still pursue my passion. I will go over some things that help me to succeed despite my mistakes. This is for the younger children so they can learn possibly what things to do if they have at a couple of years where they slack off. Hey! I get it! You only live once and you want to have fun. Trust me, I did do that a lot (which is what my previous blogs were about). Even if you slack off though, doing these things will help you still be able to chase your dreams.

1. SEPARATE FROM PEOPLE Let me just start by saying I have an amazing family that I love dearly. I have a wonderful mom who I considered a best friend and two wonderful dads (a step father who raised me since I was 3 and my biological father who has always stayed in my life). I have wonderful friends that I've know going on 20 years of my life, BUT LIVING IN ISOLATION IS A BLESSING. Now, I know this might be hard to do for younger kids, but I would say find a local Starbucks or somewhere to sit and do your artwork. There's nothing more annoying than when your in the groove of doing your art and your family keep calling you every second to take out the trash or wash dishes, or drive mom to the grocery store. Your friends will distract you to no end with goofiness. Even when you are working on a project together, they will distract you! You need the time away from people to get your ideas done quicker and more skillfully. Lucky for me, I live alone and I'm out of school. My friends have their families and/or don't live close enough to just walk to so easily anymore.

2. STOPPED LISTENING TO HATERS The fact that you state "I don't give a fuck" doesn't stop you from "giving a fuck" People want to be acknowledge by others and care. This is why we have things like instagram where their are dozens of booty models. This is why facebook is one of the top sources for information on other people. This is why we brag about how many followers we have online. You ever notice though, you'll see 1,000s of nice comments, but respond to the one negative one? Don't lie. We all do it and hold onto that shit. When you see your friends, you're going to tell them about that hating bitch, not the 5 nice things that came before it. We all want some form of validation and at times this may stop us from moving forward with our work. In my last blog, I talked about how my friend at the time told me how my drawings sucked. At that age, it stopped me from going for my dreams. Words definitely can hit you hard.

I think this more comes with age then any simple solution. As in the case with the Joker "some people just want to watch the world burn". You learn over life that keeping yourself in a safe space and trying to avoid cruel people or offensive statements is not a possibility. The world doesn't act or respond in the same way that you would like them to. We are all humans with differing views on life. There will always be a clash of thoughts. I'm not going to act like there aren't things that still offend me when I read them or hear them just because I'm in my early 30s, but I can say I don't give as much weight to it as I once did. I grit my teeth and still throw my projects, art, articles, and videos out into the world. Sometimes, people get value from it and sometimes they don't. However, at least I can be satisfied knowing I made an effort towards my goals.

These are just surface level things, but I will be going deeper into reasons in the next part of this blog.